


Visions of Blood and Dust

by KitKqtEnderheart



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Hallucinations, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, except frisk the poor bab, it works out in the end i guess?, possible death, some violence, they all technically get their happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:00:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9324935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitKqtEnderheart/pseuds/KitKqtEnderheart
Summary: Is that blood on his jacket? Why is she melting? Why are they covered in dust?





	

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> -PTSD-induced hallucinations and violence  
> -death/murder  
> -Blood and dust
> 
> TOUCHY SUBJECTS:  
> -some swearing  
> -not 100% canon  
> -possible/probable misrepresentation of mental illness  
> -skelebro angst

Papyrus wasn't sure what was going on. All he knew was that something was wrong.

Sans had increasingly been getting more and more apathetic over time, but it seemed like he had declined by a year overnight. Papyrus was almost afraid to ask after the last time. It had ended in Sans getting very, very angry. Afterwards, Sans had insisted it wasn't at Papyrus. He was never angry at Papyrus. It didn't stop him from being extra irritable every time it was brought up.

When Sans had walked out with his jacket torn and red pooling from a gash on his chest, Papyrus had nearly screamed.

"papyrus? you okay?" Sans queried.

Papyrus blinked and Sans' wound had vanished. "WHAT? OH. OF COURSE I AM, SANS! WHY WOULDN'T I BE? AFTER ALL, I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

"okay..."

"REALLY, SANS. I'M PERFECTLY FINE. YOU'VE GROWN TO BE SUCH A LAZYBONES THAT I FORGOT SOMETIMES YOU KNOW HOW TO WAKE UP BEFORE 1300. NOW, I'M OFF TO GO TO TEA WITH UNDYNE AND KING ASGORE. PLEASE FEED ROCKY."

After a slightly reluctant agreement, Papyrus headed out.

* * *

 

Undyne was sliced in half, barely holding herself together through sheer determination. Even that was beginning to fail as she slowly melted.

"UNDYNE! WHAT HAPPENED?"

"What do you mean?"

Once again, it was gone after he blinked. "NEVER MIND. I MUST HAVE HAD SOMETHING IN MY EYESOCKET."

The kettle whistled a moment before the door knocked. "Hey, Paps, can you get that for me?" Undyne ran toward the kettle and started pouring tea with a surprising amount of gentleness.

Opening the door revealed King Asgore, but something was off. Papyrus brushed it off as his imagination again.

A few minutes into tea, the king's ex-wife was brought up. She had supposedly been housing a human child.

 _IF I COULD CAPTURE THE HUMAN, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO OFFICIALLY JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD._ Not that he wasn't already practically a member. Undyne was reluctant to swear him in, and he couldn't blame her. After all, Papyrus truly had no desire to harm anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, and if they were a dangerous human, he might have to... He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. King Asgore already practically recognized him as a Royal Guardsman, and he did much more than a normal sentry. Perhaps this would cover the technicalities.

But... what if a monster came out of the ruins and he mistook them for a human? Or the other way around? With these weird hallucinations, anything was possible.

"Papyrus? You okay?" Undyne broke him out of his thoughts.

"Wha..? OH, YES, OF COURSE I AM, UNDYNE! WHY WOULDN'T I BE?" His phone rang. "JUST A MOMENT! IT'S PROBABLY SANS SLEEP-CALLING AGAIN." He stepped outside and answered.

 _"hello, papyrus?"_ The voice gave him chills.

"WHO IS THIS?"

_"Aw, you don't remember me? Don't remember how I killed everyone left in Snowdin? Don't you remember how I punched your stupid little head off and crushed you into dust? Or how Undyne gave her life defending a child?  Maybe you remember how I sliced Sans wide open, even after he gave his all? Haha, you idiot."_

"May- MAY I HAVE YOUR NAME PLEASE? IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO M-MAKE A NEW FR-friend..." Papyrus's rattling bones could be heard from all the way inside.

_"I'm coming, Papyrus. You're at Undyne's, right?"_

"N-NO! PLEASE! DON'T HURT THEM!" The call was cut off.

_"p-papyrus? what's wrong?"_

He tore away from the hand now resting on his shoulder. "DON'T HURT THEM! PLEASE!"

"paps, what are you...? are you okay, bro? why are you so worried i'm going to hurt them?... papyrus?"

The slash across Sans' chest as he backed away only fueled Papyrus' fear. "S... Sans? SANS?!"

"Papyrus? Is everything...!" Asgore cut himself off as he saw Papyrus manifesting a complicated bone attack, aiming toward anything that moved. "D-DON'T HURT ANYONE ELSE! PL.. PLEASE!"

Unfortunately, Sans chose that moment to charge Papyrus. "paps, knock it off! you're hallucinating!"

"SANS!" Undyne screamed.

Sans expertly dodged the intricate attacks, only pausing for a blue one before being dragged to the ground. A hefty bone headed straight for him... and then he was gone.

* * *

Dust littered the ground and clung to Papyrus' bones. The blue jacket that had once belonged to his brother was dropped haphazardly on the ground. He swore the small creature that taunted him from the corner of his eye wasn't human, but they most definitely weren't a monster.

"Papyrus?... Why?..." the king inquired

The child was gone with the dust, and Papyrus had killed Sans. It was more than he could take. Nobody's attempts to console him did anything.

For weeks, Papyrus barely dragged himself out of bed and off to work. At first, he had been haunted by visions of Sans, but he'd pushed even that away after a bit. Almost everyone avoided him like the plague. Maybe it was better that way. Every time he looked at them, he could only see death and dust. Undyne was the only person who had even tried to contact him, and even she had eventually given up. When the human had finally made it to Snowdin, Their dusty, injured body startled Papyrus, and he killed them in a blind panic. His second LOVE was something he'd grown to despise.

 _Ring, ring._ A glance at the caller ID revealed an unknown caller.

"hello?" His previously exuberant way of speaking had devolved into lowercase muttering like Sans.

"h-Hello, may I speak to the great Papyrus?" The speaker seemed to need to force his voice into speaking in "normal case."

 _another skeleton? i thought i was the only one left._ "i'm papyrus. what do you need?"

"you are? Oh, I mean, um, of course you are! Silly me! Um... could you come to the fifth tree from the ruins? th-The one with the treehouse? There's something for you."

 _how would they know about the treehouse?_ "i'm on my way." Papyrus clicked his phone shut and shuffled into the woods.

The tree was a tall one, but that was the point. As a child, Sans would often teleport up there, not bothering to climb the branches. The way up was burned into Papyrus' memory from the several times he had visited alone. The phone dinged with a text message:

 

> Don't climb the tree. Wait at the bottom.
> 
> okay.

And so he did.

* * *

 

Scaring Papyrus was never Sans' plan. Neither was nearly being dusted. Neither was being forcefully blocked out of Papyrus' head.

It was as if Papyrus refused to acknowledge Sans' existence. Every so often, he could get Papyrus to look at him, but it was usually accompanied with a sad smile and mutterings about his "past sins" coming to haunt him. Sans had hit his breaking point when Papyrus had told him to go away and stop trying to make him feel better. "I KNOW I'M CRAZY. DON'T EVEN BOTHER TRYING TO TELL ME OTHERWISE, SANS." It was the last time Sans had heard Papyrus speaking in his energetic, uppercase speaking form.

He crashed with Alphys for a while, trying to devise a plan to break Papyrus out of his depression... Undyne tried to tell him Sans was alive, but he'd brushed her off and locked himself in his room. The next day, his HP had dropped. Sans' determination never wavered.

Eventually, word had gotten out that Papyrus had killed a child in cold blood. The regret that engulfed him afterward had taken even more of his maximum HP.

 _so the kid kept their promise in the end._ Frisk had promised to never reset if they could avoid it. That included reloads, unless it was absolutely necessary. When they'd reset last timeline, it didn't seem intentional (after all, they were in the middle of a conversation), and they'd only reset the genocide timeline to fix everything.  _of all the times... then again, we're free now._

After the barrier broke, several monsters chose to remain underground, himself, Papyrus, and Alphys included. It would be easier to make sure Papyrus didn't do anything drastic there.

Sans had to prove he was not only there, but alive and well. If he tried while Papyrus saw him, he'd merely be rejected as imagination. If he was unexpected, he'd be caught as an illusion. What could he do?

One day, Sans shouted, "THAT'S IT!" and startled Alphys into rolling onto the floor.

"H-holy crap! Sans! I d-didn't know you could yell li-like that!" she scolded when she realized it was him.

"alphys! i got it! my old phone is still connected to the underground cell phone system, right?" She nodded. "great! it's in the basement. i'll go get it. just warning you in case the amalgamates get hungry."

"S-sans, there's no guarantee it e-even survived if it's down th-there."

"we'll find out, won't we?"

That's how he ended up sitting in the treehouse he and Papyrus had built as children.

* * *

 

After a few minutes, Papyrus called the number back. "whoever you are, i don't find this funny. i'm going home."

"No, Papyrus. Give me about five minutes. Please." The anonymous caller had taken on a pleading tone.

 _ugh._ "okay, five minutes."

Four minutes passed with no sign of anyone. At the start of the fifth, a soft yell approached, eventually turning into a battle cry. "geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet dunked on!"

A small skeleton decked in a blue hoodie and black jogging pants landed with an "oof" on Papyrus' back, knocking them both to the snow.

"SANS!" Papyrus was overcome with a combination of joy and grief. "...but you're dead. i killed you."

"paps, didn't you check your stats afterward? or look for dust? up until you killed the human, you were still lv 1. you never killed me. i just teleported too quickly and dropped my jacket."

 "SO WHEN I... oh my god, sans... i'm so sorry..."

Sans took a quick shortcut back to the house and half-carried Papyrus to the couch. "it's okay, papyrus. i understand. i really do... maybe it's time we had a little talk?"

When Alphys came to check on Sans' progress, the brothers were passed out hugging on the now tear-stained couch. She snapped a photo and headed out, texting it to Undyne on the way.

> ALPHYS: looks like it worked :)
> 
> StrongFish91: I'm so glad Papyrus is going to be okay! Now we can have tea and CATCH UP ON HIS TRAINING!
> 
> ALPHYS: maybe we should give him a bit of time
> 
> StrongFrisk91: YEAH! THAT TOO!

When the door closed, Sans muttered, "frisk... if you reset... i wouldn't mind. not now that i know what to look for."

* * *

 

A year later, most of the remaining monsters had made their way to the surface. Sans and Papyrus lived in a small condo in Monster Town at the base of the mountain.

"SANS, CAN YOU HELP ME TIE THIS?" Papyrus passed the green necktie to Sans, who deftly wrapped it loosely under the collar. As much as he hated to admit it, he was still afraid someone would use any kind of neck accessory to try to kill Paps. "THANKS, BROTHER."

"no problem. got a date?" Papyrus had been talking about a nice human at work lately and had even invited them over for dinner.

"AS A MATTER OF FACT, I DO. YOU'RE LOOKING PRETTY SNAZZY YOURSELF," he noted, gesturing to Sans' button-down grey shirt and dress pants. "TORIEL OR GRILLBY? ALPHYS AND UNDYNE HAVE A BET."

"tori's got a  _bone_ ified sense of humour, but grillby is just too hot." _Ding-dong!_  "and that's my cue to leave. see you later tonight."

He teleported away from Papyrus' belated complaints and knocked twice on the fire elemental's door. "knock, knock."


End file.
